Searching for Lily
by weiyaoli
Summary: After a car accident, all Harry has left is his daughter Lily. But she has disappeared while attending Oxford. Hearing rumours of the mysterious Master can Harry find Lily and in the process rediscover himself?
1. Prologue

_Dragon Pox: _A fairly common disease, relatively harmless for the healthy.

But Harry had never been healthy, having been born three weeks premature. Lily could still see the mounting horror in James's eyes as the healer held up the deathly pale, stick thin baby. And she couldn't stop herself wondering what went wrong.

It had always been her dream to have children, even when she was very little. She had seen how happy her mother and father were when they were in her presence. And as soon as she was old enough to understand where babies came from, she had decided to have one of her own.

But her dreams were shattered with the accident, the accident that claimed the lives of her father and her little brother. Her family was never the same, fractured beyond repair. Her mother had gone into depression, slipping into a dark grey world full of what ifs and what may have been. Her only sister, Petunia had blamed her, and who could argue with the facts? She was the one who had distracted her father with her a simple show of magic whilst driving, who was the last one to see the oncoming lorry smashing into them. And when the doctor presented her with the fact that she was infertile, there was a period where she was close to committing suicide.

But she didn't. She struggled on and fell in love.

Harry was a miracle. Even the healers could not have helped her situation, for who could when her entire abdomen was ripped in half by the pieces of shrapnel. But they had not given up and finally, after many months of digging through the Potters' library, they found a temporary cure. It would allow them to have one child, the one thing Lily wanted above all. Therefore although they knew it would have been kinder for Harry and for them to let go of their little miracle, they decided to struggle on with what would be a short and difficult life.

Young Harry always caught a multitude of diseases with his poor immune system. From the flu to every stomach bug that was around. They were always on high alert, when every little cough could mean death if not rapidly treated.

The prophecy brought more and more trouble. With it they went into hiding, all time wondering how little Harry Potter could ever be a threat to Voldemort. It restricted their access to doctors and healers. Luckily there was a local doctor in the small village who was more than happy to look at Harry when he was taken ill. But the absence of healers would prove deadly. Although the Potter's were well versed in symptoms of magical diseases, dragon pox had next to no symptoms and when they at last found out, it was already too late to save Harry. So they watched as Harry slowly slipped away to a place they could not follow.

The funeral was a private event. They held it in their back yard and watched as the remaining ashes floated up through the air.

_-_-_

It was Lily who found the baby on the doorstep. She had wanted to see the village of Godric's Hollow one last time, to say goodbye to the kind muggle doctor who had helped out in their time of need. And it was pure chance that she had decided to walk there for at the last second, she decided she wanted to see the view from her front garden.

The shrill shriek she made could have rivalled her sister Petunia's two short weeks later making the same discovery but for very different reasons.

For the baby was the very image of their recently deceased Harry; the same emerald eyes that glowed when you looked at it, the same messy mop of black hair that resisted all attempts at taming it. Even its cry was similar, but when she carefully picked him up, she nearly dropped him when she realized that _it _was not her Harry, that it was a poor imitation. Perhaps as a practical joke from that elusive godfather Sirius. Although there were many similarities, she could at once see abnormal birthmarks upon his neck as though he had been wearing a circle of metal around his head. The baby also clutched a shiny golden watch in his left hand, and as she moved to inspect it, the baby stirred and started crying.

Although perhaps James could have dismissed the scream as perhaps wind, the sound of crying was unmistakeable. So he came running towards a most familiar sound.

They could do nothing but watch a child that looked remarkably like their own Harry cry. Even James was not hardhearted enough to leave such a child in the rain. So they brought him in. And they played pretend, for perhaps the child was another miracle, a chance to start again; a chance for a happier life, together as a _family_.

_-_-_

But it was too late for the Potters for two weeks later it was Halloween, the day that the Dark Lord Voldemort came to visit.

"_Lily! Run! It's him."_

"_But…"_

"_There's no time! Take I… Take Harry and run!"_

"_James!"_

And on that day, it came to pass that Voldemort killed the two Potters. And a curious event occurred when he tried to cast the death curse on little "Harry Potter". The tightly gripped watch started glowing in a maelstrom of gold and as silently as a leaf drifting towards the ground, the green light was absorbed. And the cloud expanded and expanded until it was full of energy. Voldemort, knowing at last, he was outmatched, started to run away. But it was already much too late as the cloud of pure energy exploded outwards, vaporizing Voldemort's mortal body. The dead bodies of the Potter's were vaporized too and it was only little "Harry Potter" that survived as the watch shielded him against the worst.

_-_-_

And little Harry Potter was once again left on his "aunt" Petunia's doorstep. On the coldest day of the year.


	2. Memory

_A/N: I'm sorry about the time it took. I've had most of this written for ages... just haven't summoned up the energy to edit it. Please PM or leave a review if you do find any spelling or grammar mistakes. I don't currently own a copy of the first Harry Potter so can't check what Hagrid actually said to Harry_,_ but I'll try and make an effort to check it and change it. Sorry for shortness, was going to write more but figured might as well update now.  
_

The park was small, with only an overbearing oak tree providing the barest hints of shadows. Birdsong slowly drifted down from the mass of greenery, soothing all troubles. When Harry was little he used to often sit by this oak tree in the small park, silently entertaining himself until dinner. He would twirl leaves around in a secret dance that only he and the wind knew, hum along to the barest snatches of music carried by the wind. It wasn't the best place to play pretend; the oppressive heat in the summer was overbearing and families often had picnics underneath the cooling shade.

He would be an explorer one day, exploring the great unknown of the massive forest, fighting off stray branches and running away from great terrors. He would be chased by massive beasts as he fought back with his mighty cleaving sword. The whistling of the sword as it cut through air was impressive to all.

On the days he decided that he was too tired to explore, he was a squirrel. Perched on the second highest branch of the tree; the world was his to study. He watched all the small families with their little children out for the day, the hysterical laughter of the children as they ran around enjoying their day out. He would feel small twinges of jealousy at how happy they were compared to him but knew even while he was busy pretending that he was happy enough in this pretend world. Harry especially liked how sometimes the smaller children would wander up to the tree and spot him. They would attempt to climb it too, only achieving it will some help from Harry. There they often played for what seemed like hours on end but inevitably worried parents came looking and with a reprimand already on their lips. The children would take one fleeting glance of regret backwards before allowing themselves to be dragged away.

The small park was Harry's haven. In it he was relatively safe, from spiteful looks, from physical punishments and from the non-attentions of his "family". In it he was free to pretend all he wanted, to imagine what a better life could be. As he got older, explorers became astronauts, squirrels became birds but for an entirely different reason.

---

He first saw the bird a week before Halloween. The frosty weather was biting into the earth and there were less and less other visitors to the park. It was twitching feebly on the ground with one wing broken. Harry was at a total loss but managed to find a few berries for the bird to eat. It was clearly in terrible pain but managed to gulp all the fruit down. Harry didn't know what it was that drove him to help the bird, but perhaps it was because it was like a kindred spirit. The bird's wings were clipped and it was trapped on the ground instead of flying high overhead. Harry knew it had to be kept in a safe place where he could check upon without walking to the park. So he brought it back to Private Drive and carefully settled it among a small pile of branches and leaves in a dark corner of the shed. He only hoped that Uncle Vernon wouldn't pay too much attention to the damp patch in the coldest part of the shed.

Harry brought the bird whatever scraps of food he could find the next few weeks, somehow managing to keep the bird alive. Its wings gradually grew stronger and the bird started to hunt for itself. And eventually, when Harry came with a few scraps of burnt bacon he had scrounged off the frying pan, the bird was gone.

He didn't see the bird again until the Christmas. Harry was running away from Dudley and slipped into a small gap between two houses to escape. Harry himself had only just managed to fit so it was impossible for Dudley to follow. Hearing bellows of rage and chancing glances backwards, he didn't notice he was rapidly approaching a wall until he slammed into it. And taking a few minutes to re-orientate himself, he almost missed the little familiar chirp. It was flying mightily above him in the sky, soaring through wind currents. With a final flourish and turn, the bird tweeted one last time as farewell and left the skies.

He was proud. Of the bird who had managed to recover so_ fast _but also of himself, of his greatest achievement to date. Small chest puffing up with pride, Harry whistled cheerfully back along the alley, managing to forget all about Dudley until he smacked into the second brick wall of the day.

---

His memory was often patchy. He put it down to his youth. After all, Harry noticed that adults never talked about their childhood. Maybe they had all forgot?

It was common for him to wake up one morning without any recollection of the previous day. He frantically dug around his small cupboard for clues the first time it happened but finding nothing but a small paperclip.

As Harry gets older, he forgets less and less until the gaps in his memory seem like a distant dream. He gets on with his miserable existence; going to school and pretending to do no work, coming home to chores. Sometimes he wondered if he was the Dursley's slave. The pretending was the hardest though. Before, he had only imagined and pretended for fun but pretending every day of his killed all fun he ever could have had in it. And just as well too for he was slightly too tall to not draw suspicion from adults, even though being much too small for his age. He retreated to the library now, a public place that not even Dudley could ruin with his anger. All too fresh memories of glowing red bottoms after he had burnt a book preventing Dudley from following.

But then his 11th birthday comes and everything changes for him.

"_Yer'a wizard Harry"_


End file.
